2015

elle, e-Waste Jewelry

Elle is a high-end fashion wearable made from eWaste.

Each year, nearly 50 million tons of electronic trash is generated in the world, and a large portion of these materials are considered garbage, when in fact they are not. Nowadays, electronic devices are quickly discarded for a better, nicer, or newer ones, and not because their useful lives are over. This project transforms electronic waste into stunning, unique, and colorful handcrafted jewelry, while exemplifying an environmentally-aware fashion statement.

This collection is my work as an Artist in Residence at The Lower East Side Ecology Center's electronics recycling facility in Brooklyn. The Lower East Side Ecology Center’s Gowanus E-Waste Warehouse collects hundreds of thousands of pounds of unwanted and broken electronics from residents across New York each year. I have been selecting electronic components that people drop off there, to experiment and create wearables made entirely out of electronic wires and plugs.

During the residency program, I learned how to make different types of knots that are usually made using rope. These techniques can be replicated using wires and cables instead, and the tutorials to create these patterns can be easily found online. Through my project I am trying to encourage people everywhere to experiment using these or their own patterns, using their own electronic trash in order to create beautiful and environmentally conscious jewelry.